October 2015

Hello again, savvy savers! I hope you all are well rested, and ready for a new daily challenge! So today I want to focus not on selling things gleaned from your home, but items that can be made from items you have on hand. I am speaking of online consignment selling on ThredUp.com. 

So, why ThredUp.com?

Thredup is a mom and pop company, a small group of technology lovers, problem solvers, and some busy moms and dads. thredUP is based in downtown San Francisco. They pride themselves on being not just one of the nets largest online consignment carriers, but that they’ve been able to create meaningful jobs in the local economy and help build awareness about sustainable clothing practices and the environment.

A few other reasons to check the site out:

1. The sites allow you to sell clothing online, consignment-style, to a larger audience of potential buyers.
2. You are selling clothing to the vendors, and they offer you credit which can be used to either buy new clothes, or to have a Paypal buyout option.
3. Clothes that are not accepted are donated, on your behalf, to charities in their area. 
4. You do not have to leave your home to sell items! 

What Can I sell:

• Clothing
• Shoes
• Purses
• Children’s Clothing
• Men’s Clothing

How to Sell:

1. You should first start by figuring out what you want to sell.
2. Next inventory what you want to send.
3. Go to ThredUp.com and LikeTwice.com to request item shipment bags; bags are mailed to you free of charge. 
4. Once your bags arrive, mail back packages in the pre-sorted bags.
5. When your bags have arrived, you will receive notice, by way of email, as to what items have been accepted or rejected for sale.
6. Currently, ThreadUp is offering 100% return rate on all handbags, totes, and luggage! 
7. Currently sellers on LikeTwice can earn a $10 BONUS FOR YOUR HANDBAGS AND $5 FOR YOUR SHOES THROUGH 6/28! 

Seller Tips:

• Try to sell items that are current, classic, or sought after in design.
• Items should be in good, wearable condition.
• Shoes and leather goods should be clean; please read over ThreadUp’s policy, here!
• Be realistic in your options. Just because you paid $100.00 for a pair of jeans you will realistically not receive most of your investment back; aim for a quarter of the items worth.
• Rejected items will not be returned, but donated; only sell items you are ready to part with.
• Items you wish to have returned, you can opt to pay the $12.99 fee to purchase return assurance, so all returned items arrive back quickly to you. The fee will be taken out of your payout amount.
• LikeTwice will allow all returned items to ship back to you for $4.95; the fee can be taken out of your sellers account, store credit, or paypal account, too! 
• Both companies also accept plus sizes, maternity, and men’s clothing as well. 

So, today I challenge you to order a bag from ThredUp.com, and in a weeks time, mail off your consignment goods! 

My Selling Goals Were:

• I am going to list 10 household items, per bag.
• I hope to make $100.00 in profit.
• All items that do not sell will be donated to charity.
• To request both bags today; I will blog about the rest of the process during my June No-Month Spending Challenge. 

As well today I was also able to accomplish:

1. As part of my #Choose30 Daily Challenge, I woke up at 7:25, walked my fur babies, showered, & dressed to my shoes. (Thanks, Flylady!)
2. Worked on my daily Motivated Moms Planner.
3. I finished a day’s worth of clerking assignments ahead of schedule!
4. I cooked from my pantry for each meal.
5. Read my daily devotional.
6. I waked two miles.

Today I saved:

• I eat at home this evening for dinner, saving our family $6.95. 
• I recycled, upcycled, and composted one bins of deluge, and saved $0.25, the cost of 1 trash bag. 
• I cooked three meals from my home pantry, saving $6.81 in the process.
• My family drank water today, and saved $0.69, the cost of a 2-liter of soda.
• I also did not watch cable tv, and saved $3.68 by doing so.

Total amount I saved my family: $21.38

Please be sure to check back tomorrow for another way to save for this months No-Spend Challenge! 

Here’s to saving,

Hello again, savvy savers! For today’s October No-Spend Daily Challenge, as part of the #31DayLWSZ Challenge, I want to discuss my experience with today’s prompt, reflecting on this past weeks savings victories, challenges, and learning curves. 

So, thus far this month I was able to save a total of $738.46, and some of the ways I did this were by:

• Pantry Organization
• Utilizing On Hand Food Options To Help Make Weekly Menu Ideas Sheets
• Learning Home to “Dine Out At Home”
• Working on a personal #Choose30 Challenge to be more positive daily.
• Rain-Check Shopping for next months needed coupon staples and groceries from this last weekend.
• I clean off my Counter-tops to use as workstation areas for donating, sorting, and prepping donations.
• I listed and sold items via eBay, Craiglist, Facebook Local Groups, and Craftsy patterns. 
• Had an in-home spa day and saved $32.00! 
• Upcycled several new home projects. 
• Our family ate from our crock-pot for a week! 

I did have a few set backs this week though. My husband needed to take the entire $80.00 cushion I set aside for this months produce and incidentals budget for an impromptu school robotics club he is the sponsor of, as well as the funds needed for an oil change (for his car that was suppose to have previously been taken care of). Mind you I was a little taken back to find my home stripped of cash, sodas, and my pre-purchased Halloween candy (candy and sodas to help supplement our family and his 14 students going with him on this trip). My saving grace? Three hours after he left for his day-trip, I received not one, but four ETSY shop orders (that I already had the materials on hand for, score!), which not only reimbursed my budget, but paid for the missing household staples, and set my savings goal ahead by $27.00!

So, all’s well that ends well here is the Roberts household. 

As well here are a few ways I have been able to accomplish my no-spend goals this past week: 

1. I woke up at 6:25 daily, walked my fur babies, showered, & dressed to my shoes. (Thanks, Flylady!)
2. Worked on my daily Motivated Moms Planner.
3. I read three review books. 
4. I finished today’s Day 1-7 No-Spend Challenges!
5. I enjoyed a free Chik-fil-a- frozen latte!
6. I cooked from my pantry, eleven times.
7. I walked for three miles every other day!
8. I finished all of my daily blog posts on time!
9. Read my daily devotional.
10. I cleaned out my coupon cabinet, paper files for my ETSY business, and recycled numerous bins of random scraps of fabric around my craft room, too! 

My tally of last weeks savings are:

• I was able to procure 16 new rain-checks savings $54.00 in savings.
• I completed 2 surveys online via Ipsos-iSay, and earned a $1.00 towards my next Amazon gift code.
• I eat at home thirteen times, saving our family $77.93. 
• I recycled, upcycled, and composted one bins of deluge, and saved $1.20, the cost of 6 trash bags. 
• I enjoyed a free Chik-fil-a frozen latte, for free, a savings of $2.99!
• I received $32.98 worth of product review items, which can be placed in my home gift closet!
• My family drank water for one, and saved $7.30, the cost of a five 2-liters of soda.
• We made DIY fireplace starters, savings $12.98 over commercial pricing. 
• We used earned gift card dollars at Sam’s Club to buy gas, saving us $20.04.
• We made DIY hand sanitizer bottles, saving our family $7.98.
• We made DIY wet dog food, saving out family $19.98 over a case of pet food cans. 

So, overall my family saved $238.38

This months savings goal remaining: $62.34 of our $800.00 goal for this month. 

All-in-all, I am pleased with this past weeks progress and will be thinking of new and better ways to save come the next three weeks ahead! Mind you this progress is in part due to my families use of earned and gifted survey cards; I’ve read a lot of people state that they will not be using them on the challenge, but for me and mine, we love them. I legitimize these cards as ALL were earned from taking surveys, using savings apps, or by wining contest, paid affiliate campaigns, and giveaways. Free money is just that, free. 

I’m excited to note that these funds will be able to be allocated for last-minute holiday gifts, holiday donations, and Angle Tree presents this holiday season. As well, a fourth of the funds from this challenge went towards my yearly savings goal for acquiring a rental property/tax sale in the year and a half to come.  I am proud of myself, and so proud of you all as well.

If you were able to follow along with this past weeks #31DayLWSZ challenge, I’d love to hear about it!

Here’s to Saving,

Good morning, savvy savers! For Day 20 of the October No-Spend Daily Challenge, I wanted to share with you all some of my favorite At-Home Spa Treatments! With all of the stresses of everyday life, it’s important that we take some time for ourselves and just relax. Not all of us can afford the luxury of a day at the spa or even have the time! Now there are some fantastic skin care products and treatments available including Rodan and Fields, Plexaderm, Clinique, and many others. You can read some Plexaderm reviews to try and find some affordable skincare products that are not only effective but budget-friendly too. In the meantime, here are some great tips on how you can treat yourself at home! Your mind and body will thank you. The key words for today is grace. 

A few posts to check out are:

Homemade Bronzing Powder, For Only $0.20!

DIY Spa Pedicure, For Under $1.00!

Homemade Bronzing Powder, For Only $0.20!

DIY Garnier Eye Makeup Remover!

Free At-Home Back Pain Treatments!

DIY Garnier Eye Makeup Remover!

Gingerbread Body Scrub!

DIY Organic Spring Blush, Only $0.50!

Homemade Warm Honey Eucalyptus Body Butter!

DIY Self Tanning Lotion

DIY Summer Hair Lightening Mask!

DIY Summer Exfoliating Coffee Scrub!

DIY Tea Tree Oil Conditioner, For $0.20 a Bottle!

DIY Dr. Pepper Lip Smackers!

DIY Summer Chamomile-Mint Astringent

DIY Organic Honey Eucalyptus Body Butter!

DIY Morning Coffee Scrub

I hope this list will be a resource for so many of my readers who need to take a day, a non-adulting day, where you can find solace in pampering yourself, your temple, and your spirit. I hope this will be a blessing to you. 

Have an awesome day,

Hello again, savvy savers! Happy Monday, ya’ll! As it’s a new day, it’s a new way to sell and save, as part of this months No-Spend Challenge! Today, I’ll be focusing on Craftsy! 

If you knit, crochet, quilt, cross-stitch, or do any type of sewing, and you are a savvy-saving, crafty kind of person ( you come up with your own designs for the things you make), then you can earn a passive income selling your unique patterns on Craftsy! Of course there are lots of other sites you can use to sell your patterns (Etsy, Ebay, etc.), but the great thing about Craftsy is that it’s free to list and Craftsy lets you keep all the money from each sale — they take no fees out of what you earn.

If you make your own patterns and don’t mind others having them, you’re not out anything other than a little bit of time if you post them on Craftsy since they take no listing fees nor a commission. All the money you earn from sold patterns is yours, and they provide a very nice platform for you to use to get your stuff out there; a great opportunity to statsh a few bucks bask for the upcoming holiday season!

So, what’s Craftsy? 

Craftsy is fast becoming a very popular website for “crafty” types. In addition to offering a pattern marketplace free of charge to Indie designers, they also have virtual crafting classes you can take and some good prices on crafting supplies. 

Every single pattern you create can be sold over and over when listed on Craftsy. So you can list it once and keep it up for good. And the more patterns you have listed, the greater the chances you’ll sell something occasionally. I love passive income like this because it means you only do the “hard” work (creating the finished product) once. And then the pattern can sell itself over and over.

Also consider:

• Craftsy is an online crafting community and sales shop.
• The site features craft supplies, classes, online forums, videos, and affiliate opportunities.
• One of the best aspect of the site is their classes; some types of classes focus on quilting, sewing, knitting, cake decorating, art, photography, cooking and many more categories.
• Classes are taught by industry leaders, which allow users to learn at your pace with easy-to-follow HD video lessons you can access on your computer and mobile devices. 
• Craftsy offers free mini classes, as well as pay-for-lesson classes, too!
• The best part about Craftsy is their forum which allows crafters from all works of life to be able to sell their patterns online! 

Why sell on Craftsy? 

• Craftsy loves Indie designers!
• You’ll never be charged a fee or take a commission when you list or sell your designs. 

How to sell on Craftsy:

1. Be prepared. In order to list your pattern, first need to have an idea of what you would like to sell; scrap-booking, knitting, quilting patterns, etc.
2. You will need a PayPal Account. You will need either a Premier, Student or Business account to sell patterns on Craftsy (these accounts are all free to set up through PayPal); this is required so that you can accept credit card payments from pattern buyers.
3. Your pattern must be in a .pdf file format. The standard format for patterns on Craftsy is .pdf. So whether yours is a Word doc, a JPG, or another document format, you will need to convert all patterns to PDF before you continue.
4. For Machine Embroidery patterns, the supported are .pec, .sew, .jef, .hus, .pes, .art, .and vip.
5. If you have multiple .pdf files, you can add them to a .zip file and upload the zip file.
6. Photos: Each pattern must have at least one photo, and no more than five, per project.
7. Listings: You will also need to write a basic description paragraph about your pattern. 
8. That’s it! You’re now a Craftsy seller! 

Each listing in the Craftsy pattern store has a photo or photos of the finished product, a detailed description of the pattern along with what materials will be needed to get started, and of course the price. You’ll have to go in and add all this information and upload a .pdf of your pattern. Also, if you’re not sure what to charge for your patterns, look around at similar products to get an idea of what others charge for theirs. That should give you a good idea of what patterns for items like yours are selling for.

If you have your pattern on your computer in Word document or as a picture (.jpg), you can convert it to .pdf through an online converter. Here is a free one to get patterns finished lickety split. Then, you just upload your .pdf file to Craftsy along with your photos of the finished product and you’re ready to get your pattern listed and start selling it.

Seller Tips:

• Be sure to think outside of the box. 
• If you can do any of the following, you can create a pc file pattern: Quilting, Sewing, Knitting, Cake Decorating, Crochet, Drawing, Photography Collages, Gardening/Planting Beds, Woodworkers, Macrame, Jewelry Making, Scrap-booking, and Embroidery. 
• Write patterns how you would want to read patterns.
• You can Google patterns to be an idea of what written formats should look like.
• You can make anywhere from $3.00-$10.00 per pattern.
• This is a great way to make passive income at home.
• Have fun! 

Affiliate sales:

Looking for passive art-based income, without personal sales? Are you a blogger or have a following on social media? You can sign up as an affiliate for Craftsy and earn commissions when people buy products or sign up for crafting classes through your blog. Go here to sign up as a Craftsy affiliate.

So, today I challenge you to create a Craftsy account, and then sell a pattern on Craftsy! 

Here’s to saving,